SKC gives BWB 30 days to improve water supply
Vice-President Saulos Chilima has given Blantyre Water Board (BWB) a 30-day ultimatum to resolve water supply challenges in the commercial capital, saying erratic water supply is unacceptable.
The Veep, who is also Minister of Economic Planning and Development and Public Sector Reforms, gave the deadline yesterday when he re-engaged BWB as part of public sector reforms meetings.
He said BWB management had positively accepted the challenge and committed to improve service delivery from October 2 2020.
Writing on his Facebook page after the meeting in Blantyre yesterday, Chilima said: “It is completely unacceptable that people should stay two days or even one week without water. To this effect, we have resolved and agreed that erratic water supply in Blantyre should be a thing of the past effective 2nd October 2020.
“This means that we have given management 30 days to fix the problem. The board has committed to implement this. We have agreed that failure is not an option for this task.”
In his post, the Vice-President, fondly known by his initials SKC, said the meeting tasked BWB to issue a press statement committing to Blantyre residents that water supply will stabilise in 30 days from yesterday.
Chilima also said prior to October 2, BWB should be filing weekly updates to Minister of Forestry and Natural Resources Nancy Tembo on the strides being taken to ensure that water supply stabilises before or by the given deadline.
On Monday, BWB management issued a statement attributing the worsening water supply to power outages at its Chileka Pumping Station.
But Consumers Association of Malawi (Cama) executive director problem was persisting when power supply in the country had improved.
During the engagement yesterday, Chilima also sought clarity on what led BWB to regress to the point of incurring K8.9 billion loss in the 2019/20 financial year as presented when he met management last Thursday.
He also sought clarity on BWB’s roadmap for the installation of pre-paid meters and water situation in Blantyre.
In recent weeks, residents of some areas in Blantyre, including Ndirande, Namiyango, part of Kanjedza, Zingwangwa, Machinjiri, Chilobwe and Green Corner have been going days without water supply.
